


Snowbird

by Bhelryss



Series: fe8week2017 [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: F/F, Prompt: Comfort, magvelweek: day 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-22 23:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12493628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bhelryss/pseuds/Bhelryss
Summary: There is no true sadness in Vanessa’s home. (Tethys spends half the year travelling, dancing as her heart commands, but half the year she spends with Vanessa. It eases the pining of her lovesick heart.)





	Snowbird

The loudest sound between them was the shifting of sheets. The rustles and small noises one associated with bodies in a bed, turning over as the morning dawned. Red and green hair was splayed out behind two bodies, breath a light mist in the frostiness of a late winter sunrise. Dark, heavy blankets were drawn up to the chin, and even as the grey morning light changed in the face of the strengthening sun, they remain turned to each other and kept warm.

“Spring is coming,” Tethys whispered, her face open and smile soft. Vanessa could watch her always and never grow anything but more in love. Her caring heart, her bright smile and her passions, all part of the most vibrant woman Vanessa had ever met, had ever loved. Even so, the proclamation did not bring a smile to Vanessa’s face.

“So soon?” She whispered, moving a hand to brush bangs from Tethys’ face. “It feels as if it were only last week that you came home to me.” Vanessa knows as well as Tethys that is has been nearly two full seasons since the dancer returned to the cold halls and windy lands of Vanessa’s family. But this is a familiar routine between them, nimbly done as any dance Tethys might otherwise perform.

Tethys hummed an affirmative, lips curved upward and eyes blinking slowly in this peaceful moment. “So soon,” she agreed, allowing the silence to stretch onwards and the chill of the day warm slightly as the sunlight through the window continued to creep its way across the floors. “Would you not see your partner follow her heart and dreams?” She teased, nimble fingers lacing with Vanessa’s own under the comfort of their warm bed.

“I would that your heart did not take you so far from my own duties,” Vanessa admitted, bringing Tethys’ knuckles to her lips even as she curled towards her against the chill of the bed behind her. “I always have loved seeing you dance, and though I rejoice to know you have your work to bring you happiness, I miss you all the same.” 

For half the year Tethys would go, out to dance in all the world. It was what she loved, and how she spent the mild springs of the south and the tempered summers of the north. Vanessa, yet a captain of Frelia’s pegasus knights and rather tethered to her homeland in a way Tethys was not, spent the days of every season with armor and saddle ready at hand and orders and patrols and such to keep her from being by Tethys’ side.

And it wasn’t all bad. 

Because the reunions were always wondrous. To hold Tethys again, to feel the solidity of her arms and the angles of her face, and to taste Vanessa’s own name from her lips. The sharp euphoria and the bliss of Tethys’ return would never soften the longing while she was gone, but it was something to look forward to. Something she knew would brighten the winters infinitely.

For they would (and did, and had) danced through cold nights, with only the light of the hearth and the warmth of the the exertion to keep them from chasing after the warmth to be found underneath blankets. Nights where Vanessa would doze with her head on Tethys’ shoulder, while Tethys was comfortable in Vanessa’s lap, because a long day in the training yards had exhausted her. Or dinner with her family, teasing Syrene together over her secret suitor and finding her older sister strong to even the firmest of gently prying prods.

Winters were lovely, warm of heart, if not warm of weather. 

And, true enough, her father’s health faltered every winter. Tethys saw her father cough, and grow tired more easily. The chill found its way into his lungs, and he slept more days than not. Her mother grew older each year, more grey. Her eyes dimmed, and she complained genteelly about losing her spectacles and sometimes looked at Syrene and saw Vanessa instead. Syrene herself disappeared more and more often to rendezvous with her secret suitor, promising there were the appropriate chaperones to their mother and speaking of moving out when they were married. 

But also, her father rallied every spring, in time to kiss Tethys on the cheek and wish her well. Her mother might be losing her eagle eyes but seemed to stand taller every year, and never ceased to try and prod Vanessa’s gestures into something less rowdy and more refined. And Syrene, as much as she was moving on with her life, and no longer moved in circles adjacent to Vanessa’s own, never failed to reassure her family that she was going nowhere. 

No suitors would tear her family apart, age had not weakened her mother, and her father continued to thrive despite his weakened lungs. And Tethys came into their lives when the days shortened and the land stilled, waiting for the sun to return in force, and lit a fire in Vanessa’s heart. 

“You miss me?” Tethys said, smile promising certain things. “A comfort, knowing that I am not alone in missing my other half.” She blinked once, and shifted herself up  and leaned over to press a kiss to Vanessa’s lips. “When the snows come home, so do I.” She said simply, and pressed another kiss to the dip between Vanessa’s collar bones. 

“But I have not yet left.”


End file.
